‘McDonald’s dentist’ verdict upheld

The High Court has upheld a decision to strike off “for public protection” a dentist who tried to carry out work on a woman’s teeth in a McDonald’s.

Anca Claudia Macavei tried to fit a bridge in the Cannon Street, London, branch of the fast-food restaurant in 2012.

Ms Macavei argued that a General Dental Council professional conduct committee decision in July 2014 to strike her off the register of dentists for that incident and other misconduct was a “disproportionate sanction”.

The judge said: “In my judgment, the committee had ample evidence to conclude that they were dealing with a registrant whose attitude to criticism and defects in her practice, together with her response to offers to help her over a period of some years, showed that she had little insight into her problems.”

The judge added: “Against that background, the committee were entitled to conclude that they could not be confident that the public would be protected by an approach less than erasure.”

Miss Macavei, a Romanian dentist who previously practised in Tavistock, Devon, was living in London and advertising for Romanian patients online when she met the woman known as Patient 1.

The court heard that she had an arrangement to use the Cannon Street Practice surgery on an “ad hoc basis”, but her relationship with the practice manager had deteriorated and in February 2012, she met Patient 1 in McDonald’s.

When the woman refused to be treated there, Miss Macavei tried to carry out the work in the hallway outside of the dental surgery.